News

Maki Kaji, whose magazine Nikoli popularized Sudoku, visited the Advanced Placement (AP) Japanese class on Wednesday, March 26.

Japanese teacher Chie Helinski met Kaji at the Japan Bowl competition, held on Saturday, March 22 in Washington D.C..

The Stuyvesant Japan Bowl team, which consisted of seniors Hyunseung Yang, Stephanie Lin and Robert Hubbard, won first place. Their prize includes an all expense paid trip to Japan.

The competition tested students on their knowledge of Japanese culture and their mastery of the language. It included a preliminary conversational round, three competition rounds and one final championship round.

“This victory means a lot to me because this is my first and last Japan Bowl,” Lin said.

“It’s great that the Japan Bowl team won,” Assistant Principal World Languages Arlene Ubieta said. “Helinski has been doing an awesome job.”

During the competition, Helinski said “[Kaji] congratulated me and the team for the win and I asked him if he would be interested in coming to Stuy.”

While Kaji is considered by many to be the father of Sudoku, he calls himself the godfather of Sudoku because he did not invent the game, but shortened its original name “Suu na dokushin” to “Sudoku.”

In his presentation, Kaji explained the history of Sudoku and the importance of having a balance between work and fun. He distributed “ring and chain puzzles,” where one tries to attach a ring with a chain, to the class in order to stress the importance of creating a difficult, but feasible puzzle.
AP Japanese students enjoyed the presentation. “His presentation was very interesting and it captivated me,” Hubbard said. “He told us cool stuff about Sudoko and puzzles.”

“[Kaji] was a very laid back guy and it seemed like he was having a lot of fun doing his line of work,” Lin said. “After his visit, I picked up Sudoko again.”

“His visit had a big impact on the seniors, especially when he told the class that doing something you love will lead to success,” Helinski said.